Just arrived at my hotel in Spokane for the PA Continuing Ed conference.

[Aristus]

Lovely drive out from Puyallup.

Settling in for some relaxation...

Probably order room service later, idk...

[viva la]

1. I have modest dreams.

I want to stay in a posh hotel and order room service (and have my employer pay for it!).

[Aristus]

2. As luck would have it, those are my modest ambitions.

Only the room is reimbursed.

Food and booze are on me.

And they’re about to be in me…

[viva la]

3. Enjoy!

[Aristus]

4. Will do...

[Mme. Defarge]

5. Which hotel?

[Aristus]

6. The Davenport.

Got a room up in the tower with a nice view of the city.

[gopiscrap]

7. I love the Davenport

Stayed there in August I went to school in PUllman and we would go up to Spokane all the time I live in Tacoma so you're close to me

[Aristus]

9. Yeah, they've been putting me up here for about eight years now.

Although Spokane as the conference venue only comes up every other year.

The rest of the time, it’s in Cle Elum; shorter drive…

[Mme. Defarge]

8. Okay, shoulda done my research

before asking. Many, many, many, many years ago I stayed at the Ridpath Hotel on one of the two occasions in my life when I visited Spokane. I guess now it has been converted to apartments.

[Aristus]

10. Yeah, this isn't that.

Although, if I am currently sitting in someone's private apartment, I've got a lot of explaining to do...

[Mme. Defarge]

11. Whatever,

you seem to be enjoying the buzz.

[Aristus]

12. Very much...

I've needed to unspool a little for months...

[MissB]

13. My all time fav in Spokane

Funny story about staying there once:

We reserved three rooms in the tower- one with a king bed for Dh and I, one with two queens for our college aged sons and one with a king for my mom and her husband.

Dh and I arrived first, and got the keys to our room and our sons’. We put our luggage in and met our kids for a dinner event. My mother is almost always late so she and husband showed up while we were out to dinner.

Dh and I arrived back at our room (the one with one king bed..) and found alllll of my mother’s and her husband’s luggage in our room. Bit of a snafu at the check in but we got it dealt with and moved alllll of their stuff to their room.

Wasn’t going to share a room with my mom and my Dh. Not sure where my mom thought she’d be sleeping.

If you haven’t yet, consider having breakfast in the old portion of the hotel. I’m not sure what their current options are for dining- we last stopped there a few months ago but left too early- before we could have breakfast.

I love their mattresses.

[Aristus]

14. Yeah, their king mattresses make it seem like one is nestling into a warm cocoon of comfort.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. I do love staying in hotels.

I regularly attend science fiction things, as well as other travel. Well, not so much recently. This past weekend I went to my first s-f thing in two years, and it was wonderful.

I rarely order room service, mainly because I really am a cheapskate, but I should relax a little. Honestly, I can afford the occasional room service meal and I deserve the treat, right?

So glad you had a good time.

[Aristus]

16. I had sorta-kinda room service.

I ordered my dinner at the bar, and then brought it up to my room myself. Just trying to stay away from too many people in one space right now; wore a mask the whole time...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. That sounds like an excellent compromise.

Science fiction people are very science oriented. Everyone was masked. Although I did hug lots of people I had not seen in two years. I think we were all vaccinated. There was a ribbon that could be attached to the name tag that said "Covid 19 Vaccinated" and most people had one.

[Aristus]

18. Good.

I thought I'd have a hard time imagining anyone who understood science being anti-vaxx. Then that anaesthesiologist in California got fired for being anti-vaxx.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. And there are doctors and nurses out there

who are anti-vaxx. Weird. You wonder if they were playing Pong during all of their science classes.

Science fiction people as a whole are VERY, VERY science oriented. Pragmatic and practical, which is how I like to think of myself. More than once, at a science fiction thing I've heard Some Famous Author quote some kind of comment on something, and sarcastically ask, "What could possibly go wrong?"

If you have even the most peripheral interest in science fiction, I will happily encourage you to find a con near you and attend. This past weekend I was at MileHi in Denver. I also attend Bubonicon in Albuquerque, which will hopefully be live next year. I am planning to attend COSine in Colorado Springs in January, and various others. If you are even remotely interested, PM me and I'll tell you about more of them.

I do know that most people are not very interested in science fiction, even if they watch the big movies or TV shows.

[Aristus]

20. Last Fantasy/Science Fiction Convention I went to was Foolscap 2006.

In Bellevue, Washington.

Got to meet, and have dinner with, the renowned Harlan Ellison. One of the greatest experiences of my life...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. Very nice.

Do you know about the time Harlan groped Connie Willis on stage? It is absolutely the low point of his life.

I happen to be friends with Connie, who is the funniest, sharpest, most acerbic human I have ever known. Her husband Courtney, a recently retired physics professor, is another smart and amazing person.

No matter what, I'll cheerfully encourage you to attend more s-f things. What I like about the cons is that attending them is remarkably cheap. The typical price is $40 or $50 dollars for three days. So if you live in that city and can commute, it's a bargain. The bigger costs are for staying at the hotel and of course meals. I often drive to a con the day before it starts, then spend the night after the close of the con and drive home the next day. I am honestly grateful that I can afford the extra nights in the hotel. Lucky me.

For me, going to the cons has become an important part of my life. I understand that for you it may not be at all important or worth doing.

I do like how different we all are from each other.

[Aristus]

22. I heard about that.

Harlan still had some learning to do. I hope he learned from that experience, and never did it again.

Going to Fantasy/Science Fiction conventions is not really my thing; I went to the one in 2006 specifically because Harlan Ellison was going to be there.

Every year, I kept hoping Foolscap would announce he was coming back. After he died, I gave up hope.

One of my saddest discoveries is that, as I get older, I'm able to tolerate fiction less and less, and I spend more time on non-fiction; history and current events, mostly. There's so much really good science fiction out there that I've never read, and I'm starting to think I never will...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

23. Good that you had the experience of going to that one.

What a shame you never got to see him again.

I read a LOT, more than 100 books a year, which is not exactly a record, although it's reasonably impressive. About half of what I read is non fiction. The fiction part is divided into many categories. Science fiction, which I do love, is not all that a large percentage. When I write (and I do write a bit and have been published a couple of times) science fiction is where I wind up. It's my natural genre, so to speak.

My essential problem is that I am interested in EVERYTHING. Especially in non fiction. OMG. I do keep a book list, have for decades. For a long time I only wrote down the title and author. A decade or so ago I started making other notes or comments on the book. They come in very handy when I want to tell someone else about a book I think they should read.

I'd recommend keeping a book list for anyone who reads more than two or three books a year. It's so easy to forget what you read, or what it was about, or what you thought of it. Write it down. Trust me, you won't regret it.

[malthaussen]

24. Great! A day or two without patients!

Get in some quality mellow time.

-- Mal